Saturday, March 12, 2011

Finding Patrick

The sun has dropped behind the hills to the west and I have stood in the field as the sky has tumbled from a royal to a navy to an ink blue that is almost black and now the moon has risen to straight above, surrounded by an immense ring which fills almost half the heavens.

At my feet the grass turns from dry to damp and the chill settles around me, and, though it has now been more than a year since my last cigarette I pull a fresh pack from my pocket, tear off the plastic, open it, the tobacco adding to the smells of the night, and slip the Camel between my lips.

Then I pause. I do not want to strike the match. I do not want to, even for a moment, add light into this dark. Terrestrial light seems an insult to that moon and the stars which themselves wait on the edges of the ring, Orion impatient on the southwest.

Patrick is not really my saint. Patrick brings the light to Ireland, which surely, is good. But to St. David the lights in the night are harbingers of death - ignis fatuus - and are to be carried with care. So I wait as well, the silence so deep that I hear the blood coursing through the capillaries of my ear drums, a faint yet ancient beat.